Hotel, Grounds and Gardens

The French Horn is a landmark building in Sonning, occupying an enviable position on a bend in the River Thames. The Restaurant, and most bedrooms, look out over lawns down to the river. The restaurant’s picture windows and delightful Virginia creeper-covered terrace serve to bring the outdoors in and vice versa. This is one of Britain’s most elegant dining rooms.

Outside there are various corners of the garden to explore, from colourful plants to willows weeping on the banks.

Sonning-on-Thames is a typically pretty Berkshire village, complete with church and good pub. At first sight it’s rather a sleepy place, where the annual show and scarecrow hunt is the annual highlight. In fact the village has a secret, more glamorous side. It has an unusually high past and present list of celebrity residents, from Dick Turpin to Jimmy Page; from Theresa May to Uri Geller to Sir Terence Rattigan.

The local theatre is rather a rarity. The Mill is a 215 seat dinner theatre with high quality productions. Ticket prices include a 2 course dinner and coffee. It’s fun to do. There are also theatres in Reading (The Hexagon) and Windsor (The Theatre Royal).

If that all sounds rather exhausting, we recommend the idyllic Nirvana Spa in Wokingham – we work in partnership with them, and our guests may become day members.